gourami, tetras, and guppies
 

Would these be a good combination for a 15 gallon community tank?
What kind if gourami?
What kind of tetra?
Can gourami be in a tank with platies and swordtails too?

I'd like a few gourami and some cory cats for sure, but I don't know about tetras and swordtails an platies.i already have feeder guppies to keep in the 15 gallon.

Please let me know!
~Sydnie

Way too many fish for a small tank.

In general, most live bearers like hard basic water, while gourami, corys, and tetras like soft acidic water. Good water parameters for one group will mean poor life expectancy out of the other.

Depending on species, if you have medium hard water and a pH near 7 you might get away with both groups, but best to stock according to the water you have out of the tap. Making soft water hard isn't too difficult, but making hard water soft usually requires mixing RO/DI water.

Do you know your GH and KH? If not, you can contact or your water utility (or maybe look at their website if they have one).

I don't know anything of my water stuff. I'm planning on buying a testing kit sometime after March 23.

So livebearers wouldn't do well in a tank with tetras, cories, and gourami?
I must be being told tge wrong info. Someone told be i could keep guppies, cories, swordtails, platies, and bettas together...

How many fish could i keep in a 15 gallon? I'd like at least gouramis and 1 other species.

There are lots of variables, the old saying was 1" per gallon, but that isn't a very good rule as a long and narrow fish will produce less waste as a long and fat one.

In a 15 gallon, you'll be looking at probably at most 2 species. For Gourami you would have to choose from the small ones, for example Honey Gourami.

You'll really need to know your pH, GH, and KH. All three can be known from your water supply folks for free (just call them). You only need to buy a test kit for pH, as your GH and KH will not really change. GH stands for General Hardness, and KH stands for Carbonate Hardness.

If it turns out you have Very hard basic water, you won't be able to have Gourami in the first place without taking steps to change your water parameters.

It says my city water is very hard at 350 parts per million, 20.5 grains per gallon.
But we have a water softener... so I'm not sure if that effects anything.

So is my water too hard? How can I soften it for Gouramis, Tetras, and Cory cats?
I'm not too sure about the KH, but I'll try and find something about it.

So a few Honey Gourami, and some Cory Cats?

That is indeed very hard and not at all suited for gourami, corys, or tetra.

Assuming a salt/mineral exchange type softener (which exchanges the calcium and magnesium with sodium), I would not use this for an aquarium.

We do have to buy salt for our water softener, if thats what your implying.

What can I do to make the water aquarium safe?

I have a 25 gallon that has 22 some odd fish in it... now I'm a little worried. I can't really do anything about my fish until after March 23 because I don't have any money whatsoever...

Is there faucet or tap before the water softener so that you can get unaltered tap water? If so, I would use this - as is if you have livebearers and diluted with distilled water to the appropriate levels for softwater fish.

I'm not sure how it all works... I know that if we don't put salt in the softener, the dishwasher doesn't do a very good job cleaning the dishes and the water tastes a little off.

The guppies and bettas I have at the moment are healthy and clean as a whistle!

I asked Byron and they said that if the bettas were doing well, then gourami would be OK in my out-of-the-tap water, so would the cory cats, the swordtails, and the platy.

That was before I knew the numbers, Philip. And now that we have this thread, I would suggest we continue discussions here so others can participate, rather than with PM's. So, I'll just add below what I mentioned in my PM to you, so everyone knows what page we are on.

That is hard water. Livebearers will do OK, and rift lake cichlids, both without any messing with parameters.

The water softener may or may not be OK. Some softeners work by replacing mineral salts with sodium salts, and are as bad if not worse in the end. It would help to know how yours works.

If youhave a reliable local fish store, find out what they do for their soft water fish. Don't comit to buying anything, just explore to see their practice.

Diluting hard water is fairly simple, using distilled water, RO water or even rain water. The latter is the best if there is no industrial pollution issue.

A 15g is a small tank, so getting it prepared will be fairly easy. And water changes won't be too bad either, with so smal a volume. Rainwater would obviously be the easiest way, but buying RO water would not be expensive with such a small volume.

We can explore any of these further. The common cory species like Corydoras aeneus and Corydoras paleatus would be OK, though I would myself still want to dilute the hardness a bit. Honey Gourami much the same.

Byron.